Tag: ohio

I finished my Ohio Star Bandandit Cowl. I’m pleased because it came out exactly as I designed it. So in that sense, it is a successful design.

It is also a successful garment. It fits, it keeps me warm, and it will stay up over my nose when I need it to.

The star motif is subtle and that’s fine. This isn’t a super exciting design, but it works. I mainly made this for hiking. The Bare Naked Wools Better Breakfast DK is also very soft and very warm. I think I’d like to knit an oversized cardigan out of it.

Bob and I had a lovely hike yesterday, and I got lucky with this photo, which I plan to make into a felt painting.

Today’s essay from Knitting Season Club is about losing yourself in the creative process. I don’t need any help with that as I am a daydreamer by nature, but she did share two songs from Alice Coltrane. How refreshing to be introduced to a female jazz great, and I now have a new favorite song which I am currently listening to on repeat as I swatch in the studio.

I have two design ideas for the Warm Hands competition. I am swatching for both today. One design is for Milarrochy Tweed, the other is for Ard Thir. These arm warmers were knit for me by my friend Marjorie (holla!) and they, along with this alpaca poncho from Bolivia, are my inspiration for one design.

The other is a spin off of a design I was already working on. I’m being careful not to put too much out there, because designs aren’t considered if they’ve already been made public.

And I got some new yarn this week!

This is Cabecou Lace in Sel Gris. I will knit Anne Hanson’s Dust Devils with it. This yarn smells really good, by the way. I had a hankering (get it?) to knit something lace this summer.

I was good and completed my swatch for The Oa on the smaller sized needle. I haven’t steamed it yet. I also threw in a row of the green for color C to see how it would show up and I’m really glad I did, because it doesn’t! Show up that is. I also tried some knit 2 of A and C before binding off, just to be sure. Someone who has more experience with colorwork probably would have seen this coming. It’s ok, though. I ordered two balls of black and I’m sure that will work.

This week’s Knitting Season assignment was to write every day with the prompt, “Remember when I…” So I wrote about the time I dyed this silk top blue, spun it into yarn, and knit it into this tam. It’s a little beat up now. I wore it and so did some of the kids, which made me happy. It inspires me. I think I might like to save up and get a spinning wheel again.

I also spent some time working on this design for a colorwork Ohio Star Cowl and beanie.

And the original Ohio Star Bandandit is almost done, but I ran out of yarn! I ordered another 2 ounce hank and am looking forward to blocking it and wearing it. I want to knit another one with more texture work in The Fibre Co Arranmore Light in St. Claire, the bobbly tam yarn.

So it has been a productive week. I guess I am slowly but surely getting closer to reaching my goals.

People ask me how I do all of this on top of a full time job and my very part time work with Haven Herbs, and I can say with certainty it’s because Bob does all of the shopping, cooking, and cleaning. And he does it because he likes it. I do my own laundry and dishes, and clean the bathroom sometimes, but that’s really it. So shout out to Bob! ❤️ Also, I only have one kid still in school and he is super low key. ❤️

Q. What item did you make that was a complete win? You loved making it, using it and got compliments on it.

A. I’m just going to say hats. I seem to do really well with hats in general.

Q. How about a project that was a half win? You either loved making it and didn’t use it or hated making it but loved using it.

A. I loved making my Magenta Le Smoking, but I don’t wear it. There is no shaping in the shoulders, and it is too small to really wear comfortably. I love the color. I’m still thinking about frogging it.

Q. Is there a technique that you’ve used in the past that you’ll never do again? How about one that you avoided and ended up liking? Do you use the items?

A. I tend to avoid intarsia. I don’t hate it, but I don’t love it either. I prefer knitting that has an intuitive rhythm to it. I haven’t knit intarsia in a long time. It was a sweater for my oldest son that had a star on the front. He really liked it. I guess I would knit intarsia again if there were a really good reason for it and I liked the finished product enough. But I think it’s clear that I’m more of a process knitter.

I need to get cracking on my Ohio Star Cowl. I skipped the last Knitting Season creative assignment, which consisted of knitting a stranded colorwork design in different colors, in favor of finishing up my Otter Ferry. I can see the point of the assignment, but my Knitting. Time. Is. So. Precious.

Do you prefer to spend your time knitting towards a finished object? Or are you happy to knit experimentally? Do you swatch a lot? Or just enough to get the gauge?

I’m in the latter category. What was it I said about being a process knitter? Maybe I am a product knitter, or a combination of both?

Do you ever play that fortune cookie game where you read your fortune aloud, and then punctuate it with “in bed”?

I did make it to my studio today, but not for very long. Although I am feeling better, I fatigue easily. I came home, ate dinner, relaxed in a lavender bath, and crawled into bed.

I resketched my Ohio Star Bandandit Cowl. (This is what I call it in my head as I imagine wearing it over my nose and mouth like a bandit.) I think I’m ready to cast on. I’m not gonna lie, I saw the Purl Soho Bandana Cowl months ago on Ravelry and thought it was a clever idea, but I did not look at the pattern because I knew somewhere way deep down in my heart I was going to design my own one day.

I didn’t even link to it. So there. You can search.

The first pattern in the Kate Davies Knitting Season Club is a lovely sweater with a simple motif. The design challenge was to create your own motif. I think my Ohio Star qualifies, even though it is texture and not colorwork. I do love the sweater but will probably wait to decide if I will knit it, and if so, how.

I had forgotten what it is like to have to slow down to accommodate my body. I had been doing very well for a year or so.

I’m going to try to go to the gym tomorrow. Fingers crossed…

What are you working on? I think I’ll check out my reader and see what you all are up to…

Today started off wonderfully with an early trip to the sledding hill in hopes of being the first ones there- and we were!

Although my GERD was flaring up, I took some medication and hoped for the best. I wasn’t going to let it spoil my fun. And we did have a grand old time, howling with laughter and screaming down the hill as fast as we could make our little plastic toboggan go.

It was over in an hour, as my stomach and constitution couldn’t handle any more thrills. I had hoped for a good day of sledding, an aromatherapy event for Haven Herbs, and then some time in my studio.

Most of my days are good days. It’s rare now when I have to adjourn from life to the couch or my bed to wait while the worst passes.

I don’t know if it was something I ate or the accumulation of stress over the week, or most likely a combination of things, but I’ve had to accept that studio time isn’t going to happen today. And luckily I wasn’t needed at the aromatherapy event.

I wanted to work on my Ohio Star cowl, and I did spend some time with an app while I lay on the couch.

The gauge here is spot on for my Better Breakfast DK. The chart isn’t perfectly symmetrical as the top half is shorter than the bottom. That can be fixed.

The Ohio Star is a quilt block pattern, and I remember my Grandmother showing it to me when I was young. Because I now live in Ohio and the yarn is from Ohio, I started exploring this design for my cowl. I wanted something intrinsically American, and after perusing different First Nations and early American motifs, I decided this was a natural fit.

Invisible illnesses are not only difficult because of the illnesses themselves, but also because it’s so easy to get into the “just shake it off” mindset, which doesn’t work and is psychologically unhelpful. Today I kept thinking I was going to feel better, and as the day wore on, I grew worse and worse.

I do a lot. I have many passions and I’m not the kind of person who can ignore the desires that drive me. But in order to do all the things I want to do, I have to know when to slow down, take care of myself, listen to my body, and let it all go… not forever, but for later.

So I’m back in bed with a cup of herbal tisane. Even knitting feels like too much. I may try a book.

I took today off for some self care after my whirlwind inventory tour for work.

I can’t decide if I should get out of bed or not.

It’s finally snowing. I love the snow and would be very sad if we didn’t get at least one good blizzard. It’s only flurrying today, though, so not enough to keep me from going to the gym and running some errands. If I can get out of bed, that is.

As you can see, I didn’t have any trouble getting into my journal today. I transferred over my goals from my decomposition notebook into a list format with the help of a new stencil. After using said stencil, I’m not quite sure I needed it, but as I now have it, I’ll probably carry on using it.

I finished my Carbeth today. This is pre-blocking. Even so, in full knowledge that this does not have the required ease, I still love it and it is perfect over my favorite flannel shirt. I also chose to skip the rolled neckline, because jowls, and instead matched the ribbing on the hem.

Wow, I never thought it would be so difficult to get one photo of myself I felt was decent enough to post on my blog.

I have a full skein of yarn leftover! Super exciting, because I love this gorgeous red Targhee!

For my next cast on, I’ve decided to start Celtic Myths. I wound my skein of Cheryl Oberle’s Dancing Colours today, and as you can see, the colors are sultry! I am casting on with hopes of wearing it to the Celtic Colours Festival in Nova Scotia in October. Bob and I have a goal to get there and spend some time with his parents.

Bob and I went hiking on Sunday. I say hiking, but it was really wandering around lost in the mud. It was still a beautiful day, as you can see.

I really love the community here on WordPress, and I’m so grateful to have made so many new blogging friends in 2018. Thank you for reading my blog!

Kate Davies posted a helpful article about getting started with your journal. Yesterday, I made my first marks in it.

Rudimentary, but a start. This is a 2 ounce cake of Better Breakfast DK in Poppyseed from Bare Naked Wools. I want to knit a cowl with it, and it’s my first design of the year. My ideas for this design are still pretty half baked, but getting a sketch done and a gauge swatch is helping me inch forward.

Yesterday felt like I was playing house, only playing knitting designer in my studio, because this was very much an exercise. And that’s why my word for 2019 will be “Practice.”

My next entries in my journal will include a list of knitting projects in my queue, and a completed color chart of the Birds of Blendon hat.